Tippi Hedren is the LA Press Club’s 2017 Visionary Award Winner

The Los Angeles Press Club is proud to announce that Tippi Hedren will accept the Club’s Visionary Award at the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards Gala on December 3 at the Biltmore Hotel, downtown Los Angeles.

Hollywood legend Tippi Hedren has appeared in more than 80 movies and TV shows. Her big breakout was as the lead in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 interpretation of Daphne du Maurier’s apocalyptic The Birds. She has been a passionate and determined Animals Rights activist beginning in the 1960’s having founded the Roar Foundation and The Shambala Preserve where she cares for lion, tigers and other wild animals. Hedren has also traveled worldwide setting up relief programs in the wake of earthquakes, hurricanes, famine and war. She was also instrumental in the development of Vietnamese-American nail salons in the United States.

Press Club President Robert Kovacik says, “Tippi Hedren is a not only a talented actress and legendary screen icon, her classic beauty radiates to this day both inside and out. Her support and work on behalf of animals is unflagging –caring for many of them at her Big Cats Shambala Preserve which she founded in 1972. She represents the true spirit of the Visionary Award.”

The Visionary Award was instituted 2012 to honor an individual within the Entertainment Industry who uses their high-profile status to make the world a better place and to spread information about issues of freedom, justice and societal responsibility. Jane Fonda and Quincy Jones are among the past winners.

“I am humbled, and must say thrilled to accept this truly awesome gift of being honored with the Visionary Award from the Los Angeles Press Club. My parents, Dorothea and Bernard Hedren are looking down at me right now, with very proud smiles on their loving faces,” said Hedren.

On the same evening, the basketball great, author, civil rights icon and social justice advocate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will receive the Los Angeles Press Club’s Legend Award; New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (who broke the Harvey Weinstein story) will be bestowed with the Los Angeles Press Club’s Inaugural Impact Award; Sesame Street’s Co-Creators Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett will receive the Club’s Distinguished Storyteller Award and Variety’s Co-Editors-in-Chief Claudia Eller and Andrew Wallenstein will be honored with the Club’s Luminary Award for Career Achievement.